


Don't Wander Off

by eve11



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alien Planet, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-13
Updated: 2011-06-13
Packaged: 2017-10-20 09:10:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/211114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eve11/pseuds/eve11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The TARDIS looks after her Doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Wander Off

The first of the poison darts hit its mark with the length of a football pitch between them. Running full-out for the TARDIS doors, the Doctor slapped at the sudden sting at the side of his neck and, in stride, pinched the tiny projectile between his fingers. He had zero point six five seconds to stare stupidly at it before the effects hit and sent his next step stumbling sideways.

See, he told himself, staggering drunkenly, this was why he'd decided to leave Amy and Rory off at the salt beaches of Kellestia. Because they couldn't be trusted not to wander off, and the Sanverag stone markets were no place for humans--well, nor for anyone with as much debt as he'd amassed to the Sanverag stone merchants.

Fire blossomed out around the pinprick on his neck, a sure sign of temba-root in these parts, and he grumbled a curse, eyes imploring skyward in annoyance. In quick succession he felt three more-- _zhhhip, zhhhip, zhhhip_ , his brain supplied a noise even though there was none--all down his right side in his calf, hip, and shoulder, followed by more of the slow blooming burn. His right hand seized up in pain, and the Doctor immediately dialed down his circulatory system and implemented a metabolic firewall.

Far-away shouts reached his ears. The Doctor felt his toes cramping in his right boot, and his vision wavered. Fifty yards away at the edge of the clearing, the TARDIS' boxy blue outline blurred into the surrounding treeline. He stayed on his vector and loped forward, pointing an accusatory finger at the blur.

"You!" he cried. "You stay _right where you are!_ "

He got hit twice more in his ungainly flight-- _zhhhip, zhhhip_ , in the back and the left elbow--but he stayed on target and the TARDIS obliged in her stationarity. He lifted his left hand and snapped middle finger and thumb clumsily together right before the temba-root reached his digits. She materialized again out of the blur with five steps to go, and he lurched into her, flung the doors shut and sagged against them.

"You have . . . to need . . . sterra crystals," he panted, trying to keep his feet underneath him. He patted at the tiny pouch in his jacket pocket and tried to fish it out, his tendons stiff and screaming fiery protest with every motion. "You know . . . I can't pay for them . . . "

Thirty years indenture was the current asking price of sterra crystals on Sanverag. Well, thirty years indenture or a slave of equal value. The Doctor figured he was about six centuries in debt by now.

He may have imagined the indignant tone in the TARDIS' engine core as it rumbled its way through the last vestiges of its current crystal matrix.

"Ha!" he slurred, punch drunk and pointing at her console. "You wouldn't last one day! Anyway I wouldn't let them."

He was sweating profusely, and spots swam in his vision. He bit his lip and closed his eyes, trying to focus his metabolism to keep up with this medieval and frankly stupid poison. He was still fumbling for the crystals, his fingers screaming in protest. Nine hundred years, oncoming storm, monster to the monsters and he was being defeated by his own pocket. This wouldn't do at all. He needed to change her crystal matrix and then. . . there was something else he should probably be tending to . . .

The TARDIS hummed. Her atmospherics _whooshed_ on, sending a cool draft against his face. He staggered toward what he was fairly sure was the stairway up to her center console, but it seemed a thousand miles away, and when he opened his eyes again he was half-way down the west corridor instead and the whole thing was listing to one side.

Well, he thought, that was completely wrong. Her crystal matrix was nowhere near here. His head, God his head was killing him. He had to reach her matrix and the only thing in this wing was the--

"Med bay," he said aloud, and collapsed through the doors toward the nearest diagnostic bed. The room reeled as he dragged himself onto the platform. The last thing he properly saw was the green flashing light signaling initiation of her automatic scanning subroutine.

**

When he next awoke, his head felt full of cotton wool, but he could flex all of his fingers and toes. His jacket was folded neatly on a nearby table. The crystals . . . he tried to reach over to retrieve them from his pocket but his arms were heavy and uncooperative. His eyelids felt like lead.

An impression in his mind: _stillness | the stone beneath mountains | the weight of a second in centuries_

"I suppose you're right," he said with a sigh. "It can wait a little while longer."

He closed his eyes and fell asleep to the slow, soothing warp and weft of her transcendental drives shifting in and out of reality.


End file.
